Out of the Arctic.
When Captain Cook--who, with Captain Kidd, nearly monopolizes the young
ladies' ideal romance of the seas--was in these waters, he asked the
natives what land it was that lay about them, and they replied:
"Alaska"--great land. It _is_ a great land, lying loosely along the
northwest coast,--great in area, great in the magnitude and beauty of
its forests and in the fruitfulness of its many waters; great in the
splendor of its ice fields; the majesty of its rivers, the magnificence
of its snow-clad peaks; great also in its possibilities, and greatest of
all in its measureless wealth of gold.
In the good old days of the Muscovite reign--1811,--Governor Baranoff
sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settlement in California where
grain and vegetables might be raised for the Sitka market. The ruins of
Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that enterprise. The
Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that suffices; but his
wants are few, and then he can always fall back on canned provision if
his fresh food fails.
The stagnation of life in Alaska is all but inconceivable. The summer
tourist can hardly realize it, because he brings to the settlement the
only variety it knows; and this comes so seldom--once or twice a
month--that the population arises as a man and rejoices so long as the
steamer is in port. Please to picture this people after the excitement
is over, quietly subsiding into a comatose state, and remaining in it
until the next boat heaves in sight. One feeds one's self mechanically;
takes one's constitutional along the shore or over one of the goat-paths
that strike inland; nodding now and again to the familiar faces that
seem never to change in expression except during tourist's hours; and
then repairs to that bed which is the salvation of the solitary, for
sleep and oblivion are the good angels that brood over it. In summer the
brief night--barely forty winks in length--is so silvery and so soft
that it is a delight to sit up in it even if one is alone. Lights and
shadows play with one another, and are reflected in sea and sky until
the eye is almost dazzled with the loveliness of the scene. I believe if
I were banished to Alaska I would sleep in the daytime--say from 8 a. m.
to 5 p. m.,--and revel in the wakeful beauty of the other hours.
But the winter, and the endless night of winter!--when the sun sinks to
rest in discouragement at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and
rises with a faint heart and a pale face at ten or eleven in the
forenoon; when even high noon is unworthy of the name--for the dull
luminary, having barely got above the fence at twelve o'clock, backs out
of it and sinks again into the blackness of darkness one is destined to
endure for at least two thirds of the four and twenty! Since the moon is
no more obliging to the Alaskans than the sun is, what is a poor fellow
to do? He can watch the aurora until his eyes ache; he can sit over a
game of cards and a glass of toddy--he can always get the latter up
there; he can trim his lamp and chat with his chums and fill his pipe
over and over again. But the night thickens and the time begins to lag;
he looks at his watch, to find it is only 9 p. m., and there are twelve
hours between him and daylight. It is a great land in which to store
one's mind with knowledge, provided one has the books at hand and good
eyes and a lamp that won't flicker or smoke. Yet why should I worry
about this when there are people who live through it and like it?--or at
least they say they do.
In my mind's eye I see the Alaska of the future--and the not far-distant
future. Among the most beautiful of the islands there will be fine
openings; lawns and flowers will carpet the slopes from the dark walls
of the forest to the water's edge. In the midst of these favored spots
summer hotels will throw wide their glorious windows upon vistas that
are like glimpses of fairy land. Along the beach numerous skiffs await
those who are weary of towns; steam launches are there, and small barges
for the transportation of picnic parties to undiscovered islands in the
dim distance. Sloop yachts with the more adventurous will go forth on
voyages of exploration and discovery, two or three days in length, under
the guidance of stolid, thoroughbred Indian pilots. There may be an
occasional wreck, with narrow escapes from the watery grave--let us hope
so, for the sake of variety. There will be fishing parties galore, and
camping on foreign shores, and eagle hunts, and the delights of the
chase; with Indian retinues and Chinese cooks, and the "swell toggery"
that is the chief, if not the only, charm of that sort of thing. There
will be circulating libraries in each hotel, and grand pianos, and
private theatricals, and nightly hops that may last indefinitely, or at
least until sunrise, without shocking the most prudent; for day breaks
at 2 a. m.
There will be visits from one hotel to the other, and sea-voyages to
dear old Sitka, where the Grand Hotel will be located; and there will be
the regular weekly or semi-weekly boat to the Muir glacier, with
professional guides to the top of it, and all the necessary traps
furnished on board if desired. And this wild life can begin as early as
April and go on until the end of September without serious injury. There
will be no hay fever or prickly-heat; neither will there be sunstrokes
nor any of the horrors of the Eastern and Southern summer. It will
remain true to its promise of sweet, warm days, and deliciously cool
evenings, in which the young lover may woo his fair to the greatest
advantage; for there is no night there. Then everyone will come home
with a new experience, which is the best thing one can come home with,
and the rarest nowadays; and with a pocketful of Alaskan garnets, which
are about the worst he can come home with, being as they are utterly
valueless, and unhandsome even when they are beautifully symmetrical.
Oh, the memory of the voyage, which is perhaps the most precious of
all!--this we bring home with us forever. The memory of all that is half
civilized and wholly unique and uncommon: of sleepy and smoky wigwams,
where the ten tribes hold powwow in a confusion of gutturals, with a
plentiful mixture of saliva; for it is a moist language, a gurgle that
approaches a gargle, and in three weeks the unaccustomed ear scarcely
recovers from the first shock of it; a memory of totem poles in stark
array, and of the high feast in the Indian villages, where the beauty
and chivalry of the forest gathered and squatted in wide circles
listening to some old-man-eloquent in the very ecstasy of expectoration;
the memory of a non-committing, uncommunicative race, whose religion is
a feeble polytheism--a kind of demonolatry; for, as good spirits do not
injure one, one's whole time is given to the propitiation of the evil.
This is called Shamanism, and is said to have been the religion of the
Tartar race before the introduction of Buddhism, and is still the creed
of the Siberians; a memory of solitary canoes on moonlit seas and of
spicy pine odors mingled with the tonic of moist kelp and salt-sea air.
A memory of friends who were altogether charming, of a festival without
a flaw. O my kind readers! when the Alaska Summer Hotel Company has
stocked the nooks and corners of the archipelago with caravansaries, and
good boats are filling them with guests who go to spend the season in
the far Northwest, fail not to see that you are numbered among the
elect; for Alaska outrivers all rivers and out-lakes all lakes--being
itself a lake of ten thousand islands; it out-mountains the Alps of
America, and certainly outdoes everything else everywhere else, in the
shape of a watering place. And when you have returned from there, after
two or three months' absence from the world and its weariness, you will
begin to find that your "tum-tum is white" for the first time since your
baptismal day, and that you have gained enough in strength and energy to
topple the totem pole of your enemy without shedding a feather. There
is hope for Alaska in the line of a summer resort.
As ghosts scent the morning air and are dispersed, so we scented the
air, which actually seemed more familiar as we approached Washington in
the great Northwest; and the spirit of peace, of ease and of lazy
contentment that had possessed our souls for three weeks took flight. It
was now but a day's sail to Victoria, and yet we began to think we would
never get there.
We were hungry for news of the world which we had well-nigh forgotten.
Three weeks! It seemed to us that in this little while cities might have
been destroyed, governments overthrown, new islands upheaved and old
ones swallowed out of sight. Then we were all expecting to find heaps of
letters from everybody awaiting us at Victoria or Port Townsend, and our
mouths fairly watered for news.
We took a little run into the sea and got lost in a fog; but the pilot
whistled for the landmarks, and Echo answered; so that by the time the
fog was ready to roll away, like a snowy drop-curtain, we knew just
where we were, and ran quietly into a nook that looked as if it would
fit us like a bootjack. The atmosphere grew smoky; forest fires painted
the sky with burnt umber, and through this veil the sun shone like a
copper shield. Then a gorgeous moonlight followed. There was blood upon
that moon, and all the shores were like veins in moss-agate and the sea
like oil. We wound in and out, in and out, among dreamy islands; touched
for a little while at Nanaimo, where we should have taken in a cargo of
coal for Portland, whither the _Ancon_ was bound; but Captain Carroll
kindly put us all ashore first and then returned for his freight.
We hated to sleep that night, and did not sleep very much. But when we
awakened it was uncommonly quiet; and upon going on deck--lo! we were at
Victoria. What a quiet, pretty spot! What a restful and temperate
climate! What jutting shores, soft hills, fine drives, old-countrified
houses and porters' lodges and cottages, with homely flowers in the
door-yards and homely people in the doors!--homely I mean in the
handsomest sense, for I can not imagine the artificial long survives in
that community.
How dear to us seemed civilization after our wanderings in the
wilderness! We bought newspapers and devoured them; ran in and out of
shops just for the fun of it and because our liberty was so dear to us
then. News? We were fairly staggered with the abundance of it, and
exchanged it with one another in the most fraternal fashion, sharing our
joys and sorrows with the whole ship's company. And deaths? What a lot
of these, and how startling when they come so unexpectedly and in such
numbers! Why is it, I wonder, that so many people die when we are away
somewhere beyond reach of communication?
But enough of this. A few jolly hours on shore, a few drives in the
suburbs and strolls in the town, and we headed for Port Townsend and the
United States, where we parted company with the good old ship that
carried us safely to and fro. And there we ended the Alaskan voyage
gladly enough, but not without regret; for, though uneventful, I can
truly say it was one of the pleasantest voyages of my life; and one
that--thanks to every one who shared it with me--I shall ever remember
with unalloyed delight.